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“Es usted Dominicano?” the guide at Demejagua National Park points to me, a smile on his face. Huh? No, I’m not Dominican.

The Dominicans re-purpose old cars as part of their “public” transportation system. Pictured here is one of the fleet vehicles for “La Ruta Muñoz” which costs 30 Dominican pesos ($0.75 USD) and loops through Puerto Plata and back. (Peaskis Abroad/Jacob Bielanski)

“D’yoo haf t‘e kees of la Republica!” He points at a burn mark midway on the inside of his left calf. I bear a birthmark which looks like just such a burn. This burn is commonly earned when your leg, while riding as a passenger, touches the hot exhaust pipe of a motorcycle.

Jamie supervises, to the best of her ability, the completion of English-language coloring pages. (Peaskis Abroad/Jacob Bielanski)

“Just make sure you don’t bring anything valuable with you,” Lena told me in her Belgian accent. The next morning, I removed my colorful bead bracelet. It wasn’t worth much monetarily, but had strong personal value.

Lily and I were at the restaurant early, but she had no shoes on. Lena showed up and apologized for being late for our 9 am meeting time. I wasn’t even sure what time it was. “We don’t have an alarm clock since my phone was stolen,” she told me. I didn’t have the heart to inform her that we were only there looking for our “missing” bug spray and were not quite ready ourselves.

This would have been a shitty car, even when I was in high school. And I drove some beasts. It didn’t age well. Things were rattling and shaking and doors didn’t open right.

“Mama, where’s my seatbelt?” Lily panicked. From the Santo Domingo airport she was excited to be without a carseat, but here, things were too real for her. I looked around and sighed in exhaustion. “I’m sorry honey, I didn’t know. There are no seatbelts. We’ll be okay.”

The Dominican Republic has one of the worst traffic fatality rates in the world. In taking a cab from the airport yesterday, I already have about five or six personal reasons why. Buy me a beer, I’ll tell you sometime.

I forgot that in Latin American/Caribbean countries, there is little denotation between a “neighborhood” and a “district.” I thought our hotel was located in some seedy, working-class, residential neighborhood. We are, in fact, paying $20US/night to stay in a UNESCO World Heritage Site, three blocks from a Hard Rock Cafe.

To the owner of last night’s cafe: the only thing more disconcerting to me than stray cats/dogs begging for food, is the guy hired to kick them away, often literally.

To the Asian gentleman sitting next to us in the cafe: your driver/”friend” probably never felt more imprisoned by the promise of money. Also, buying cheesy tourist shirts is cool; buying them and wearing them while still on vacation looks like a “rob me” sign to pick pockets.

Lily’s passport will expire soon, which is a shame; that chubby, eight-month-old face looks so adorable under the super-official “USA” insignia.

I’m in the middle of a project writing a guide to traveling as a family*, preparing to spend a month on a Spanish-speaking island and, amidst it all, trying not to fail as a father. I put it this way because I think “success” is a moving target. On a good day, success means “fostered her emotional and intellectual growth while providing a calming influence in her exploration of a complex world.” On a bad day, success looks more like, “didn’t let her get killed.” I worry more about failing, especially on the bad days.

These “bad days” come more frequently on the road. If anything, the raw challenge of getting from point “A” to point “B” fosters realizations that look like those stupid inspirational posters coming to life. Live every day to the fullest. Cherish those you love. Wash your hands after every potty break, sweetie, or else you’ll contract cholera.

As border security in London dismantled my bag looking for drugs, they found another fun piece of contraband: my prized, five-inch hunting knife. I like to think that no one on the Eurostar train 9040 was going to f*ck with me. That was its last gift.

The Germans don’t make “good” beer. They make time-tested styles of beer, and their populace has long come to depend on a level of beer quality and service most cultures care not to maintain. Seriously, even the dive-iest sh**hole in the former East knows how to pour one with a perfect head. (The asian restaurant down the street…well, that’s a whole other story).

But any American who dabbles in craft beer connoisseurship will be utterly “whelmed.” Dare I say, “underwhelmed.”

One thing about ancient cities: they’ve spent a long time dealing with death. Paris is pretty ancient. In its catacombs, you can almost witness the point where dealing with the dead went from sacred memorial to menial job, until finally they ended up turning the dead into an art–a sort of sacred-memorial-menial-job hybrid.

Walking along a underground cavern lined with human skulls and ancient mausoleums isn’t the sort of thing that translates well into words. So we set Lily next to them and snapped some pictures–like some kind of “Adam’s Family Vacation” photo album.

Family. Cheese. Croissants. And, honestly, a lot less B.O. than I expected. Though the smell of urine permeates many corners, Paris is still a hell of a place to kill a few days. Hopefully, these photos serve as proof of that.

I was recently tearing up the floor of a bathroom in Leipzig, helped by a spaniard named Iván. Iván comes from northern Spain and speaks English the way I speak German–just enough to fool people into thinking you can understand what they say in response.

Ivan pries up floorboards laid down in either 1885 or 1950. Either way, we’ll both develop brain cancer from the mold and lead combination we breathed for two days. (Jacob Bielanski/2012)

Construction banter is funny when you don’t share a language. A lot of pointing, head shaking–in this instance, a drain on the 3rd-floor bathtub broke (or had been broken for a while, we’re not sure) and soaked the floor through to the ceiling below. A floor originally constructed in 1885 must be ripped up. To give you an idea, dirt and rocks are what they used for insulation between the joists. Iván and I pause frequently, sharing a lot of head shaking.